The goal of the Skeletal muscle: development, regeneration and disease conference is to bring together international leaders in skeletal muscle research to provide a forum for cutting edge genetic, cellular and molecular biology underlying muscle development, regeneration and disease. This Frontiers in Myogenesis series organized by the Society for Muscle Biology has been held every three years for the last twenty years and has successfully defined the state of the art in the field. The 2019 meeting will not only discuss recent discoveries in skeletal muscle development and repair, but will also encompass advances in our understanding of human diseases, including muscular dystrophies and cancer. Our keynote speaker will be Dr. Pura Muoz-Cnoves, who has performed exceptional work in muscle stem cell aging and rejuvenating strategies. Ten plenary sessions are planned, presenting 59 speakers (31 invited speakers and 28 selected from submitted abstracts) at the senior, mid-career and junior levels. Topics addressed will include: skeletal muscle development, myoblast fusion and nuclear positioning, regulation of muscle stem cell (MuSC) quiescence, activation, epigenetic control of MuSC, novel approaches for the derivation of MuSC from induced pluripotent stem cells, bioengineering platforms for skeletal muscle modeling, role of the tissue microenvironment in skeletal muscle repair and disease, muscular dystrophies, and cancer. Invited speakers have been selected for their scientific excellence, with particular attention to appropriate representation (39% women/minorities) and geographical diversity (45% are from non-US countries). Speakers are explicitly required to present unpublished work, to ensure scientific discussions focused at the forefront of the field. Importantly, and for the first time, we have liaised with the organizers of the Gordon Research Conference on Myogenesis (Italy, June 2019), to avoid all overlap in invited speakers at the two meetings. This mutual-exclusion policy has dramatically increased the range of young scientists (26% at Assistant Professor level) invited to speak, giving them the invaluable opportunity to present at an international conference. We have also designed the program to accommodate 28 short talks selected from abstracts, to again offer more opportunities for junior faculty and postdoc/students to present. Finally, we will have three poster sessions each accompanied by a ?posters blitz? where selected poster presenters will give a one-minute talk to highlight their work, to provide invaluable experience in presenting and facilitate networking. To further foster interaction, we will organize lunch sessions where speakers are distributed and attendees can sign up to join their tables. This meeting will provide a forum for discussing recent discoveries in skeletal muscle research, and foster cross-fertilization from diverse areas of research, to further advance our understanding of muscle biology and help in development of therapeutics.
Sacco, Alessandra Narrative The goal of the 2019 Frontiers in Myogenesis Meeting - Skeletal muscle: development, regeneration and disease is to bring together international leaders in skeletal muscle research to provide a forum for cutting edge genetic, cellular and molecular biology underlying skeletal muscle development, regeneration and disease. We have assembled to speak an outstanding group of both established investigators and `rising stars' from around the world, but have also dedicated ~28/59 slots to short talks selected from abstracts, to ensure representation of exciting new developments and provide opportunities for young investigators to present their work to the muscle community. This Conference will foster cross-fertilization from diverse areas of research, to further advance our understanding of muscle biology and help in development of translational efforts for potential therapies for muscle diseases.
